


Bright Eyes, Simple Smile

by TeaHime



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Background Relationships, Bad End spoilers, Gen, M/M, Post-Canon, endgame spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-13 22:44:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9145426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeaHime/pseuds/TeaHime
Summary: ‘Mikleo’ was not the name he had in most of his lifetimes but it was the only one he would remember and cherish. The others were a haze, merely flimsy things to identify him in the countless bodies he inhabited as he was swept along by the flow of space and time.A soulmate/reincarnation AU loosely inspired by Tongari's poem, "25 Lives".





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [layerto](https://archiveofourown.org/users/layerto/gifts).



> Written for the Tales of Secret Santa 2016. 
> 
> Title and section headings from [my own song lyrics](http://scribacle.tumblr.com/post/153284184325/day-10-anemone).

‘Mikleo’ was not the name he had in most of his lifetimes but it was the only one he would remember and cherish. The others were a haze, merely flimsy things to identify him in the countless bodies he inhabited as he was swept along by the flow of space and time.

 

\-- [ a fire in our homeland burning life away ] --

_'Mikleo’ was the name his gentle mother, Muse, gave him. He never knew his father but his uncle, Michael, despite his awkwardness, did everything he could to make sure Mikleo’s family life was a warm and welcoming one. Mikleo loved them with a quiet fondness, a certainty that didn’t show outright but was a calm and reassuring presence to all that knew him. He took after Muse in this regard._

  _His best friend, Sorey, was an entirely different story. Bright green eyes, full of curiosity for the unknown and an enthusiastic, honest smile that promised compassion and adventure. Shining, like the sun, but not one that was painful to gaze at._

_Throughout the years, Mikleo found slowly that the way he loved Sorey was nothing like the way he loved his mother and uncle, but he struggled to pinpoint it._

_Unfortunately, their time together was cut short._

_The terrible things everyone believed to be fairy tales and legends turned out to be true. The Lord of Calamity razed everything to ruin, Camlann being no exception._

_As Mikleo held a dying Sorey in his arms, he wished fervently that someday they would meet again._

_As he drew his own last breath, he heard a soft woman’s voice. It was not his mother’s._

_“And you will, until you find your way.”_

 

\-- [ evergreen, calm and light ] --

“New shipment in the back came today, it’s the archaeology books we ordered. Can you inventory and categorize them?” The voice belonged to a tan man with long silver hair pulled back in a low ponytail. His manager at the local bookstore.

Mikleo had always loved books and archaeology fascinated him the most. His dream was to someday travel the world and visit various ruins he grew up reading about. He had been working at this small town bookstore for a few months and enjoyed every moment of it. His manager was a laidback guy that allowed reading on the job if a shift was particularly slow.

Today was one of those days and all throughout the morning Mikleo could barely contain his excitement about the new books. He managed to exercise formidable discipline by not sneaking even a peek while organizing them and once the displays were finished, his manager gave him permission to take his lunch break early. Mikleo always took the stairs to the rooftop garden to read. There was an awning over a bench next to a small plot of anemone flowers, and it was Mikleo’s favorite reading spot.

\---

“Are you sure this tiny place has what we’re looking for?” a young woman with short red hair stared at the entrance dubiously. “We’ve been to three major stores already and two of them haven’t even heard of the book title.”

Her companion, a tall elegant woman in her twenties with long white hair pulled into a bun, winked at her. “It couldn’t hurt to try, and this place is rather charming. The manager is a long-time friend of mine, and he’s fairly good at finding rare things.”

“This bookstore looks really awesome. The tour guidebook says it was started by a close friend of the town’s founding family and was passed down through several generations until the last member died twenty years ago.” The third voice belonged to a young man with brown hair and bright green eyes. “In any case, I’m excited!”

The red-haired woman rolled her eyes and elbowed him playfully. “You big nerd.”

With the manager’s assistance, the customers found exactly what they were looking for and as the manager was ringing up the young man, he noticed him staring at the neat display of new books by the counter.

“Oh, those. We just got them this morning. My assistant was really excited about them and took his lunch break early to read.” He laughed. “You two have similar tastes, you’d probably get along.”

 The trio completed their purchases and left.

 ---

“I’m sorry for being late,” Mikleo rushed back in. He had gotten carried away reading and missed the beginning of his shift by 20 minutes. “What did I miss?”

His manager shrugged. “Don’t worry about it, we didn’t have many people. Just an old friend of mine and her friends. One of them was kind of an archaeology dork like you. He bought a copy of the same book you’re reading right now.”

“That’s interesting.” Mikleo looked out the window. For a small moment he felt a strange sensation, as if he was on the verge of recalling something. That feeling quickly gave way to a strange emptiness he couldn’t explain.

For whatever reason, that vague feeling would come back every now and then to haunt him in his lifetime, and he had no idea why.

 

\-- [ let the ash fall and dry up these tears ] --

_"Sorey, it’s not your fault.” Mikleo put a hand on Sorey’s shoulder, carefully._

_There was no reply. Lailah looked at Mikleo and shook her head gently, indicating that Sorey needed to be alone right now._

_Mikleo didn’t know how exactly had everything happened. One moment they were confronting Heldalf with Sorey’s resonance paralyzed as Symonne trapped them all in her spells. The next, Mikleo felt the synchronized rush of fury and desperation as they armatized. He couldn’t remember how much time had passed, but before they knew it, Heldalf lay dying on the ground, face set in grim satisfaction._

_The Lord of Calamity has been quelled, but why was the malevolence still blanketing the land? Why was it still storming without an end in sight? This weather was natural, or was it?_

_"_ _I wonder…” Sorey sighed, resigned, “...when it will stop raining.” Lailah looked away, pained. Edna’s face was unreadable. Dezel frowned in frustration, and even Rose was quiet._

_It never did stop. Neither did the malevolence._

_If we only we could turn back time, thought Mikleo. Find out where exactly things went wrong. Somehow he sensed this wasn’t the first time he had wished for this._

 

\-- [ curious heart knows no despair ] --

There were lifetimes when Mikleo wasn’t human nor seraph, but inhabited a simpler consciousness.

He had the faintest memory of one of those, when he was a small white cat.

It was Christmas and he remembered was how cold and crisp the snow was and how warm the spot by the fireplace was.

That warmth paled in comparison to the young girl in the house. Brown hair, bright green eyes. Mikleo had a feeling he had seen them somewhere before but being a cat, he didn’t think too much, if at all, on it.

He spent many content hours napping on the bed while she read books, and many disgruntled ones when she dragged him out exploring. One time, in late fall, she fell into a creek while trying to cross it, came home soaked, and was in bed for two weeks with a high fever. Mikleo refused to leave her side during that time.

The seasons changed relentlessly, and soon, the girl became a young woman and Mikleo’s time was ending. She held him and wept and as he looked up into those green eyes one last time, he thought, let me meet this person again, someday.

 

\-- [ far be it from me to shoulder the blame ] --

_Mikleo walked slowly down the frozen hallway. What was once the proud Rolance palace was now crumbling and blanketed under layers and layers of ice. It was all his own doing. He wasn’t proud of it, but it was a precaution he had to take. He glanced down and saw the rough scales on his arm, shimmering pale blue and iridescent in the soft light. Gritting his teeth, he rolled his sleeve back down._

_Steeling himself, Mikleo opened the door at the end of the hallway. The room was completely dark save for a small, dim candle in a jar on an altar in the corner. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he noticed Sorey sitting on the throne, seemingly lost in thought. Sorey turned towards him, a strange look in his eyes._

_“Hey, Mikleo… we failed, didn’t we.”_

_“I’m sorry.”_

_“No, it’s not your fault. I’ve been thinking. Perhaps we’ve been going about it the wrong way. Maybe it’s impossible after all.”_

_“What do you mean?” Mikleo was worried. “Sorey, you - no - we, didn’t give everything and come this far just for you to decide our dream is worthless.”_

_Sorey smiled sadly into the distance. “But it’s too late. I know you’ve been absorbing the malevolence for my sake. I wanted to say something when I noticed but, somehow I knew you would be stubborn anyways. Will you ever forgive me?”_

_Mikleo breathed sharply. Somehow he knew that Sorey would find out, or had always known. At first it had been a simple matter, funneling some of the malevolence into himself to avoid it overwhelming Sorey, bearing pieces of the burden to lessen the toll on Sorey’s mind and spirit. He had meant to tell him, since they agreed to never keep anything from each other. But he didn’t want any of the others to worry. Lailah had cautioned him against his decision but he stuck firmly to it anyways. Water was a pure, colorless element. It was the most versatile but also the easiest to become tainted. Mikleo knew this, and accepted his fate, no matter what it was._

_Wordlessly, Mikleo walked over to Sorey and gently took his hand and placed something in it carefully. It was Zaveid’s gun. Sorey’s eyes grew wide. “You can’t possibly be-”_

_Mikleo stared back without hesitation. “Yes. I don’t have much time left.” He pushed up his sleeve. “It’ll be a matter of a few days before I turn into a dragon completely. All this-” he gestured at the walls covered in ice, “is so I could protect the others from myself, just in case. But I want you… only you, to end my life and continue searching for an answer.”_

_Sorey was stunned. “No, I can’t."_

_"Sorey, you must. Let me spend my last moments as myself.”_

_Mikleo would not remember how his life ended this time, whether or not it was at Sorey’s hands or after he had become a dragon, and it was something he would always wonder about in his dreams in subsequent lifetimes._

 

\-- [ to whisper your name ] --

Though there were many times where both Mikleo and Sorey were born into vastly differing physical forms with a variety of different names, looking back, the original names they had the first time were the only ones Mikleo would ever remember.

Mikleo wondered if Sorey remembered any of his past lifetimes. It seemed like he never did, but there was an instant familiarity, a strange and welcoming warmth that sparked every time they met. By now Mikleo just _knew_ who Sorey was in whatever world he resurfaced in.

There were many times where they did indeed never meet. Mikleo did find fulfillment in other ways before his life ended but there was always a distant, lonely ache he could never place.

 

 -- [ round and round, the wheel shall turn ] --

Even worse than those times were the times when it was too late.

One time, Mikleo had been a tutor to the young prince of the kingdom. The jolt of mutual recognition meant without a shadow of a doubt, this young prince, whose name he couldn’t even recall later on, was Sorey. This was also the closest Sorey had ever come to remembering him and the two became inseparable best friends up until Sorey’s wedding day. Apparently, Sorey had been engaged to the princess of the neighboring kingdom a year before Mikleo became his tutor. Mikleo graciously congratulated the royal couple and after the festivities were over, packed his bags. As he was leaving, Sorey gave him the pendant he always wore - gold, with a green gemstone. The same bright green as his eyes. “Promise me we’ll meet again someday”, he had told Mikleo.

Another time, Mikleo and Sorey had spent their last hours in a dark, abandoned building. It was a rainy winter and they were conspirators in something Mikleo couldn’t even remember, except it was probably illegal and they had sustained fatal wounds in the process of escaping. They could call for help, but it was probably not going to come. “We really messed up this time, didn’t we,” Sorey struggled to smile, even as blood poured out of the gash on his side. Mikleo only managed a small nod. He reached out to grasp Sorey’s hand in their final moments.

 

\-- [ lay the lines of secrecy ] --

“So you have indeed inherited our fate,” Lailah looked at Mikleo with a gentle, sad expression.

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve been traversing several lifetimes over and over again together. Sounds crazy, I know, but seems like it’s true.” Zaveid took a swig from his mug of beer.

“This happened to you too?”

Lailah nodded. “We were chosen to continue crossing through many lives until we finally found the one… to settle in? I’m not sure if that’s the right word, but there seems to be something guiding us towards a certain goal. And it also seems that we’ve drawn you and Sorey into it as well.”

“After enough times, I was starting to go mad and I was wondering if it would ever end,” Zaveid added. “Seraphim live forever given we don’t die of supernatural reasons and I have no complaints with that whatsoever, but living and being reborn too many times really takes a toll. Being a human several times wasn’t too bad though.”

“Does it really harm us?” Mikleo asked. “Will something terrible happen to us?”

Zaveid scratched the back of his head. “Probably not, but I’m personally sick of it.”

“It was probably my fault.” Lailah looked at Zaveid. “That time, back in Camlann, when we were looking for survivors, I wished desperately that we wouldn’t be alone on this journey.”

“Ah, I remember. You also tried to save that young man but it was too late, so you comforted him in his final moments.”

It was far too long ago, but Mikleo vaguely remembered the unfamiliar woman’s voice the first time around. The one before it all started.

“Lailah, was that man-”

“Yes. It was you. I think it was my wish - and also yours - that brought you and Sorey on this journey with us.”

“Sorey doesn’t remember anything. Not in any lifetime, not now.”

Zaveid put a hand on Mikleo’s shoulder. “Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. Lailah and I had a few runs where one of us forgot but I think deep down, you’ll always recognize each other somehow. It’s probably a soulmate thing.” He winked at Lailah.

 

\-- [ your voice and mine were bound by fate ] --

 And so, Sorey slept, bonded with Maotelus for centuries, quietly purifying the land.

Life went on, surely but slowly.  He felt the pain of missing Sorey the most sharply in the first century so he kept himself busy. He aided Rose in her duties as the Shepherd. He attended Alisha and Sergei’s wedding. He tutored their first born, who had exceptionally high resonance and succeeded Rose as the Shepherd when he grew up. He watched the lives of his human comrades come and go.

After the first two centuries, Mikleo no longer served Shepherds as the Sub Lord of Water. Uno took his place, and Mikleo traveled everywhere in the world, writing and sketching his adventures in journal after journal to show Sorey someday.

Mikleo often wished he could remember all the other lifetimes they had experienced together. He kept a separate set of journals for jotting down whatever he thought he remembered, even if it was in his dreams. Even if he, with only the vivid sensations of this current lifetime, sometimes doubted they were real, he thought they were stories Sorey would like to hear anyways and thus wrote them down. More centuries passed and Mikleo eventually lost track of time. 

One day, while exploring ruins he had just discovered, the floor he was standing on crumbled and gave way. Mikleo was about to cast a spell to ensure a soft fall when a hand caught his. He looked up and his heart stopped. Could he possibly be dreaming? Those same bright green eyes, that simple, honest smile…

The words died in Mikleo’s throat. After he was pulled to safety, he drew Sorey close in a tight embrace, tears streaming down his cheeks.

Sorey smiled. “I’m back, Mikleo. I’ve missed you. And I… I remember.”

“Remember?”

 “I remember everything. I don’t know why it didn’t come to me until now but... thank you for always finding me and staying by my side, even for the times where we had to part ways.”

Mikleo gave him a mildly skeptical look. “Are you sure?”

“I’m positive. Especially the time you were a cat. You made a cute one.”

“Shut up.”


End file.
